Factory Concepts and Practices in Software Development

An Historical Overview

by Michael A. Cusumano

Excerpt

Some researchers, however, have argued that structured engineering or factory processes of this sort have become possible only in industries when the rate of product innovations or changes decline to the point where firms can concentrate on process innovations related to cost reductions (abernathy and Utterback 1978, This requirement suggests that not all products or development processes are suitable for factory-oriented design and production systems, even though managers may have strong incentives to pursue more efficient modes of operations to compete effectively, especially in new industries with complex technologies.